Deep beneath the earth, light and shadow interwove.
The severed arm of the Emperor Lord, stretched across the center of the formation, was now undergoing an unprecedented tempering.
The Myriad Manifestations Spirit Fire, like a swarm of tireless bone-devouring ants, clung to every inch of the severed arm's skin.
The flames had no temperature.
They were more like the embodiment of rules.
At times, they became frost so cold it froze the flow of Death Yin energy.
At times, they became raging thunder, hammering at those stubborn nodes of law.
At times, they turned into highly corrosive acid, dissolving the scales the Emperor Lord had once been so proud of.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
The sound was dense and grating, like countless wronged souls shrieking in a raging inferno.
Li Yan floated cross-legged above the severed arm, his fingers dancing rapidly as he controlled this divine fire born from transformed greed.
Refining an Ancient God's body was far more difficult than refining any heavenly treasure.
This was not merely a matter of purifying material; it was also a contest of wills.
Though the Emperor Lord's instincts lingered within the severed arm, cut off from their source of command, they remained cunning and savage.
It would contract its defenses, hiding the core of its Death Yin essence deep within the marrow.
It would create illusions, trying to disrupt Li Yan's mind.
It might even erupt without warning, attempting to detonate its remaining divine power and perish together with the formation.
Li Yan's expression was cold and stern. He remained unmoved.
Every counterattack from the severed arm was crushed beneath an even fiercer blaze of Myriad Manifestations Spirit Fire.
This fire contained "infinite possibilities."
No matter how the severed arm changed its defensive properties, the spirit fire could evolve a law to counter it in an instant.
Scale after scale of dark red armor fell away, turning to ash.
The rough, savage outer skin burned off, revealing the crystalline, ruby-like texture of the muscles beneath.
Golden Divine Blood flowed through those fibers, giving off an enticing fragrance.
This was the essence of divinity.
Li Yan drew a deep breath, inhaling every wisp of the escaping divine fragrance.
Nourished by this high-grade energy, his cultivation was undergoing a qualitative leap.
"This feeling..."
Li Yan murmured softly.
He could clearly sense his understanding of the laws deepening.
An Ancient God's body was itself a living compendium of laws.
As he refined it, he felt like someone dismantling a precision machine, peering into the universe's most fundamental structure.
Death Yin's destruction, the Emperor's overbearing might, and that tenacity that transcended dimensions.
These insights flowed into his Great Dao of Side Effects like water.
He made a quick calculation.
At his original pace, it would take at least a century of painstaking work to refine this hand completely into his own Magic Artifact.
Even with the Great Side Effects Formation's aid, it would still take decades.
But now...
With Vast Void Dao Ancestor sending him a steady supply of "fuel"...
The might of the Myriad Manifestations Spirit Fire had been pushed to its absolute limit.
"Less than three months."
A sharp glint flashed in Li Yan's eyes.
"Within three months, I'll have completely reforged this hand."
"By then, it will be the Hand That Veils the Heavens in my grasp."
He glanced at the water mirror above him, the corner of his mouth curling into an amused smile.
"Old Vast Void, if you knew who you were helping forge an artifact for, you'd probably be spitting blood in three great gushes."
"I'll remember this favor."
After confirming that the underground formation was running smoothly, Li Yan's thoughts stirred.
A hazy shadow emerged from his crown.
It looked exactly like Li Yan, but was far more ethereal, as though it might dissolve into the void at any moment.
A Nascent Soul Clone.
The work underground was the heart of the matter, but he also needed to keep tabs on what was happening aboveground.
He had to see what the kind "fuel supplier" had done to the Heavenly Evolution Pavilion.
The shadow passed through the thick layers of rock and the many layers of formation restrictions, returning to the surface without a sound.
The sun shone brightly outside the Heavenly Evolution Pavilion.
But the moment Li Yan's Nascent Soul Clone stepped into the pavilion, the light dimmed.
It was as if this place had been cut off from the outside world, becoming a realm unto itself.
The air no longer held clear, pure immortal energy. Instead, it was saturated with something thick and slick.
It was the aura of the Yao Jue Dao Patterns.
Blue-gray smoke drifted between the bookshelves like living tentacles, slowly writhing in the air.
The structure of the pavilion's space had already warped.
The once-straight corridors twisted and turned, while the staircase to the second floor seemed to stretch into an endless void.
Tiny cracks had opened in the walls.
They were not signs of damage, but windows leading to unknown dimensions.
From time to time, strange whispers drifted through them, carrying a bewitching power.
Tens of thousands of Central Province immortals were scattered throughout the pavilion.
Something was terribly wrong with them.
Some sat cross-legged on the floor, grinning at a blank wall.
Some frantically tore apart the books in their hands, then stuffed the scraps into their mouths and chewed.
Most had gathered in groups, quietly reciting scriptures that had been altered.
Every one of them was wrapped in dense blue-gray threads.
The threads burrowed into their sea of consciousness, steadily siphoning off their reason and greed and converting them into a special kind of energy.
Then, through the formation beneath the floor, that energy flowed underground.
Li Yan's Nascent Soul Clone concealed his aura and took the form of an inconspicuous old man in gray robes.
He walked slowly along the twisted corridor.
The immortals around him paid him no attention, as if they were immersed in another world.
He stopped in front of a row of bookshelves.
Most of the books here had already been badly corrupted.
The jade slips that once recorded orthodox Daoist teachings were now coated in a layer of gray mold.
Li Yan reached out and casually pulled a thread-bound book from the shelf.
Its title had originally been The Scripture of Clarity and Stillness.
But now, the three characters on the cover twisted and changed without end, becoming The True Scripture of Illusion.
He opened to the first page.
The writing was no longer fixed ink. Instead, it had become living, tadpole-like symbols.
They crawled across the page, devouring one another and splitting apart.
A chaotic intent struck Li Yan's clone in an instant.
[When the false becomes true, even the true becomes false.]
[All you see is illusion; all you think becomes reality.]
[Do you cultivate immortality to live forever? No. You cultivate immortality to deceive the Heavenly Dao.]
[If you can deceive Heaven, you become Heaven.]
[If you can deceive all living beings, you become a god.]
[And you can even... deceive yourself.]
Li Yan looked at the absurd contents, raising an eyebrow slightly.
How was this the Void Truth Unraveled?
This was no book meant to help someone comprehend the Spatial Law.
It was a heretical text that taught people to alter their perceptions through self-hypnosis and the construction of lies.
Vast Void Dao Ancestor's methods were even more insidious than he had imagined.
He wasn't spreading power.
He was spreading a virus.
A virus called "doubt" and "falsehood."
Once cultivators practiced this technique, they would gradually lose the ability to tell reality from illusion.
They would mistake madness for lucidity and corruption for ascension.
In the end, they would sacrifice everything they had for that fabricated "truth."
"Passing off the false as true, replacing the real with the illusory."
Li Yan closed the book, lightly rubbing its slick cover with his fingers.
This path of cultivation felt strangely familiar to him.
In many ancient legends and forbidden records, there truly was an exceedingly obscure school of thought like this.
Its practitioners didn't cultivate spiritual energy or the flesh. They devoted themselves entirely to the art of "deception."
Deceive Heaven, deceive Earth, deceive all living beings.
With lies so absolute they could pry at the levers of the laws themselves.
A flicker of surprise crossed Li Yan's eyes before turning into an understanding smirk.
He tossed the book back onto the shelf.
Then he let out a soft exclamation.
"Isn't this the Sitting and Forgetting Dao?!"
Sitting and forgetting.
Sitting in the Dao, forgetting what was true and what was false.
So this was Vast Void Dao Ancestor's fundamental law.
No wonder he was called "Vast Void."
Vast meant knowing; void meant false.
To know every falsehood and manipulate every falsehood.
The immortals in the Heavenly Evolution Pavilion had all become followers of the Sitting and Forgetting Dao.
They were losing themselves in cultivation and reveling in lies.
They thought they were stealing the power of the void.
In truth, they were only burning through their own lives to pave the way for Vast Void Dao Ancestor's descent.
"Such a fine Sitting and Forgetting Dao."
"Such a fine old Vast Void."
Li Yan's clone slowly dispersed, turning into a wisp of blue smoke that returned underground.
Now that he knew his opponent's methods, dealing with him would be much simpler.
If... the Yao Jue Dao Patterns were true and false at once, then if he reversed them, couldn't they become true?
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